


Detours.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, M/M, Mutual Pining, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, River of Light, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-09-27 08:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20404522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: Seven years ago, Qui-Gon might have woken him up by levitating him slightly above his bunk, or by brushing the sole of his bare feet with a feather.  They are both too old for that now.





	1. Chapter 1

Qui-Gon switches off his commlink and leans back in the pilot’s seat. Their mission has been completed. The Council has ordered them back to Coruscant.

He is considering the virtues of noncompliance.

The mission had not gone quite the way Qui-Gon had anticipated. Oh, Obi-Wan been efficient, to be sure. He was as competent as he has always been on Azur. He was also, Qui-Gon had learned, even faster at ripping through red tape and legal forms than he had been under Qui-Gon’s tutelage. This had shortened the negotiations considerably. 

There had not been much time for talking on Azur. In the end, there had never been a time where they had been able to pause in their duties, to discuss about something other than desert water rights and treaties. Qui-Gon had felt an odd ache over that. They had been paired for missions together only a handful of times in the last several years. How tired Obi-Wan had looked, careworn and uncompromising in his duty. Qui-Gon would like to see him look a different kind of way. Obi-Wan has always been prone to folding his own happiness under the greater concern of his duties. Qui-Gon has tried to mitigate that tendency, when he can, with teasing words, trying to surprise a laugh out of him. 

Qui-Gon has, over the years, occasionally feigned to be even more erratic and nonsensical than his general inclination, in order to gently shake Obi-Wan up. To knock him off balance, just a little - Obi-Wan can be so serious. At first, Qui-Gon had thought it might help him to loosen up, that Obi-Wan might be inspired to follow Qui-Gon’s lead and let himself be pulled along by the currents of whimsy that Qui-Gon so often surrenders to. But he has found that it generally has the opposite effect: the more mercurial Qui-Gon’s behavior, the steadier Obi-Wan becomes comes, a counterweight to Qui-Gon’s whims, as though Qui-Gon’s volatile oscillations helps him discover his own orbit. 

Perhaps it’s good for both of them. This is how they have learned each other. This has become a dance of sorts, not unlike the way they move together in the dojo. This is how they discover one another’s boundaries, how they uncover tender spots that need attention and healing, how they explore new avenues of knowledge. This is play, the same way Jedi children push a feather back and forth. He thinks Obi-Wan might need that kind of play right now. And Qui-Gon himself has missed it, more than he can say. Without Obi-Wan to be an anchor, allowing him to wander, though not too far, he has wandered perhaps farther than he ought. 

He thinks there’s something troubling Obi-Wan. Perhaps he can do something about it. Perhaps they could work out a solution together. 

He cannot seem to stop himself from pausing by the bunk where Obi-Wan is sleeping curled on his side, an arm escaping out of his blankets. Qui-Gon watches him, illuminated by the faint blue cast of the ship’s instruments and controls. If it weren’t for the hair that now falls in his eyes and the beard that covers his face, Qui-Gon could almost imagine that time has reversed, that this is any one of the hundreds of missions they had completed together, that they will return to the Temple and resume their daily life together, their usual routine of meals and sparring and research. But that has not been the case for many years now. And Qui-Gon should have stopped feeling obscurely as though their separation was a temporary state, that at some point they will fall back in step and resume that old routine long ago. 

He finds himself wishing he could keep Obi-Wan near him just a little while longer.

Seven years ago, Qui-Gon might have woken him up by levitating him slightly above his bunk, or by brushing the sole of his bare feet with a feather. They are both too old for that now. 

Still, Obi-Wan opens his eyes then, as though he knows exactly what Qui-Gon is considering. There must be some trace of his seditious thoughts that flicker across his face, for Obi-Wan narrows his eyes at him. Or perhaps - a disquieting thought - Obi-Wan simply knows him well enough to be able to predict his next move. Obi-Wan has always been perhaps more perceptive when it comes to Qui-Gon’s trails of thought than Qui-Gon is comfortable with. Qui-Gon pushes that thought aside. 

“You shouldn’t,” Obi-Wan says, right away, and coughs. Azur had been a dry planet. They had worn light fabric draped over their heads as the Azurites had, but the strong winds had kicked up dust into their hair, their eyes, their mouths regardless. The suns had shone bright on the sand, flecked with miniscule fragments of rock that reflected the light. Once, Obi-Wan had turned to look at him and the sunlight had glinted off Obi-Wan’s hair, so bright that Qui-Gon saw spots dancing in his vision. He’d had to shake himself hard, clear his thoughts. 

“I shouldn’t what?” Qui-Gon asks, bemused.

“Whatever you’re considering to make you look like that.” Obi-Wan sits up in the bunk to regard Qui-Gon suspiciously. 

This will not be easy. 

He had discovered early on in Obi-Wan’s apprenticeship that Obi-Wan does not handle ultimatums well, or any insistance on following without explanations. Oh, he is pliable enough. That is not the point. He is far more pliable than Qui-Gon himself. In the past, Qui-Gon has found himself worrying about how Obi-Wan might be persuaded to grow, by someone who does not have an interest in bringing out Obi-Wan’s own preferences and personality. He has always thought that his most important task as Obi-Wan’s mentor and friend has been to coax lines around the invisible shape of Obi-Wan, to tease out his own interests and talents and true path out of him, rather than guide him down whatever path Qui-Gon wishes for him, or steer him towards what the Council asks of him. Obi-Wan has always had a tendency to fold in on himself, to let himself become what is required of him. Qui-Gon just wants to help him find his own outline. It has been difficult, to get him to say his own thoughts, rather than what Obi-Wan thinks Qui-Gon wants to hear. 

Qui-Gon spreads his arms. “And how do I look?”

Obi-Wan considers him with a judgemental air of vague disappointment in Qui-Gon’s cavalier disregard for propriety, a look that he has been cultivating since the last few years of his apprenticeship and that Qui-Gon has found, for no actual reason that he can explain, only invites him towards further mischief. Qui-Gon has found a certain delight in causing Obi-Wan look at him like that, as though Obi-Wan is the master and Qui-Gon is the student making thoroughly disappointing choices. 

“Whimsical,” Obi-Wan answers, cautiously. But he is almost smiling. Qui-Gon takes heart in that.

“I was considering an alternate route to Coruscant.”

Obi-Wan slides out of his bunk and begins pulling on his tunics and tabards. “Why? I already programmed the navicomputer to take the most efficient route back home.” He narrows his eyes at Qui-Gon. “What are you planning?”

“Oscillations,” says Qui-Gon. He is still thinking about things like trajectories, and gravity. How their paths cross again and again. How hard it is to pull out of each other’s orbits.

“Don’t be cryptic, if you please. I have a headache.”

“Very well, then,” Qui-Gon amends obligingly. “A slight detour. That’s all.”

“I remember your detours.” Obi-Wan says. They both do. It harkens back to the times when Qui-Gon, about to veer off wildly on a tangent, would pat his shoulder soothingly and say _No need for alarm, Obi-Wan. We are going to have fun_. And then Obi-Wan would try to look pleased and gratified, and not at all alarmed. 

He is sitting on the bunk, tugging his boots on. Still, when he looks up at Qui-Gon, he has a faint smile crinkling between his eyes. “What do you hope to accomplish in this one?”

Qui-Gon hesitates. He has no real excuse. _ I have missed you, _ he thinks, and also, _ Don’t make me say it. _

Obi-Wan must catch some of what he means. He rests his hands on his knees. “Hmm,” he says, and gives Qui-Gon a look that is both exasperated and fond, and oh, Qui-Gon has missed that look. “Are you considering adding kidnapping and gratuitous frivolity to your mission report?” he queries.

“It’s only kidnapping if you are an unwilling participant,” Qui-Gon replies. He hesitates. “Are you?”

Obi-Wan is considering. “I suppose you need someone with you to keep you in line.”

Qui-Gon gives him a quick sideways glance. “That was always your job.”

“It was, wasn’t it,” Obi-Wan agrees.

“I have always needed you for that,” Qui-Gon concedes, more seriously than he had intended. It is true. He has been off-balance himself ever since Obi-Wan left. Obi-Wan had been the line in the sand, letting him know when he strayed too far. Qui-Gon has felt that he could go dangerously adrift without Obi-Wan near, to keep him centered. 

Obi-Wan sighs, crosses his arms over his chest, feigning great reluctance and apprehension. But he looks quietly pleased all the same. 

“I suppose I’ll come along,” Obi-Wan says. “Just one short detour.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He coaxes Obi-Wan along the meandering streets of a city whose name he has already forgotten, on a world he’d selected for no other reason than there something about its pale green continents that, when seen from the viewport, simply felt right. Down the streets paved with the native dark gray stone flecked with white, deeper into the heart of the nameless city, and Obi-Wan trails after, content to follow along, wandering down a route only Qui-Gon seems to see.

He coaxes Obi-Wan along the meandering streets of a city whose name he has already forgotten, on a world he’d selected for no other reason than there something about its pale green continents that, when seen from the viewport, simply felt right. Down the streets paved with the native dark gray stone flecked with white, deeper into the heart of the nameless city, and Obi-Wan trails after, content to follow along, wandering down a route only Qui-Gon seems to see. 

How many times have they done this before, Qui-Gon blazing a trail and Obi-Wan following after. How many times had Qui-Gon stopped in the midst of a mission to say, _ This feels right. _ How many times had Obi-Wan been pestered into wakefulness from a hard-earned slumber to find Qui-Gon, already dressed and pulling on his boots, saying, _ I feel restless. Let’s stretch our legs. _

Qui-Gon is letting the Force pull him along, as he has done so many times before. There will often be something that just feels right, a signpost to guide his way. When he does not know which road to take, which direction to turn, he will pause and look for that subtle beckoning. He will be walking down an unfamiliar street and he will find a shop bearing the same name as the ancient Chandrilian poet whose works line the shelves of his rooms at the Temple, or he will be torn between two routes until he hears a fragment of the same song he had heard once in a spaceport as a young man of twenty, and follows the music to where he is meant to be. 

Meaningful coincidences, Qui-Gon maintains. There is no coincidence, Obi-Wan is always reminding him, only the Force. They are of course one and the same, but Qui-Gon enjoys the lecture he always receives from Obi-Wan about using precise terminology in describing phenomena. Obi-Wan has never quite understood Qui-Gon’s methods. He is dubious at best in regards to Qui-Gon’s claims of synchronicity, but he has always followed Qui-Gon willingly, allowing himself to be pulled along in Qui-Gon’s wake. Qui-Gon has felt a quiet gratitude for this, for the trust Obi-Wan offers him implicitly. There is no one else in all the galaxy who puts so much trust in him. It is an honor he has long struggled to feel worthy of. 

There’s a moment when Qui-Gon’s abrupt decision to escape the pull of Coruscant and the Temple stops feeling unaccountable, a startling deviation that had fallen straight out of a clear blue sky, and starts feeling like they are in the right place at the right time, a pair of puzzle pieces locking into place, somehow falling right into the place where they are supposed to be. 

Qui-Gon is wandering through a bustling marketplace with Obi-Wan following half a step behind him, turning his head this way and that to look at the market stalls selling fruit and fabrics and household goods. Qui-Gon stops suddenly. 

“You haven’t asked where we’re going,” Qui-Gon notes.

Obi-Wan looks over from where he has stopped to examine a stall with pots and pans. “These wares are certainly not as valuable as advertised,” he remarks to the vendor, and then, to Qui-Gon, “I’m sure I’ll know as soon as you do.” 

He grins at Qui-Gon, and it clicks together all at once, this place and this moment in time and the two of them together; it works. It fits. 

Qui-Gon will grasp on to a current eagerly, he will always allow it to carry him where it wills, down a river of possibilities to where he is meant to be. And Obi-Wan will always let him do so.

In their last few years together, there had been moments like this, when they could just look at each other and know exactly what the other meant to do, a flash of understanding between them. No matter where they were, no matter what strange world or foreign planet, there was a private bubble just around the two of them, where they could fall into orbit around each other, like a pair of binary stars. 

For so long, he has been confined to the periphery of Obi-Wan’s orbit. So much has changed. So much time has passed. When Qui-Gon glances at Obi-Wan and sees the new quietness there, a thoughtfulness where he has used to see impatience. When he sees the way Obi-Wan’s hair falls in his eyes at certain times, so unfamiliar and strange. Qui-Gon had seen the new differences between them on Azur. And yet they can still fall back into step as though the time and distance between them has been erased. This is an opportunity, he marvels. He is determined not to squander it.

Obi-Wan catches Qui-Gon’s gaze. “What is it?” he prompts, and Qui-Gon shakes his head. 

“This way,” he says, and Obi-Wan drops a pot back on the stall and falls into step, permitting Qui-Gon to lead him along the streets with an air of perfect contentment. 

“When do you think you’ll know?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Soon, it feels like.”

Qui-Gon leads them through the narrow streets of the oldest parts of the city, a miniature city within a city, distinct from the rest of the urban landscape by way of ancient crumbling stonework and trees so old that they have grown into the buildings and become part of the structure. 

His feet take him to a teahouse inside an old stone building with balconies and patios climbing around a nearby tree, and something about the place feels correct and good. His feet lead him inside the building and back out to a table on a small balcony nestled under the rustling branches of the tree. 

“You brought me all this way for a cup of tea?” Obi-Wan murmurs as he follows along. “There’s tea on the ship.” 

When you put it like that— Qui-Gon twists to look back at him. Obi-Wan is raising an eyebrow at him. “You are ridiculous,” he is saying. But his tone suggests he likes Qui-Gon’s ridiculousness rather more than he is letting on. He sits in his chair and folds his hands demurely on top of the table.

“It would appear to be excellent tea,” Qui-Gon replies. “But I am more interested in the company.”

Obi-Wan is beginning to smile. “All this way, after all this time—you just want to have a cup of tea with me?”

“I can think of nothing better,” says Qui-Gon, and means it with his entire heart.

For some time, they are content to simply sit and drink their tea. Qui-Gon has forgotten the comfort of simply sitting with a friend. Obi-Wan is relaxed across the table across from him, one hand curled around his cup of tea, the other hand propping up his chin, watching the movement of people on the streets below. The dappled light from the trees above the porch dances across his hair in an ever-shifting pattern of shadows and light. He thinks of the bright sunlight on Azur, and the contrast of the softer light on this otherwise unremarkable world. On Azur, he had kept glancing over Obi-Wan, trying to subtly catalog all the new differences in him. Now he has a chance to look. 

There are unfamiliar angles to Obi-Wan’s face in this light, there is the neatly-trimmed beard that always takes Qui-Gon by surprise. Their hands rest on the table, close but not touching. There is an unfamiliar white scar that cuts across the back of Obi-Wan’s hand and disappears under the sleeve of his tunic. It would be only a small movement to cover Obi-Wan’s hand with his own, Qui-Gon finds himself thinking. It would not be so very hard. And perhaps it would begin to convey some of what he is feeling in this quiet moment. But he does not move his hand. 

Obi-Wan briefly moves his hand to touch Qui-Gon on the wrist, and Qui-Gon comes back to himself. “Your tea is going cold,” Obi-Wan murmurs, and Qui-Gon hastily picks up his cup and takes a sip.

“I’m not much of a conversationalist, I’m afraid,” he admits. “Perhaps you could tell me about what you have been doing with yourself.”

Obi-Wan obliges him, as he always does. Qui-Gon settles into the calming lift of Obi-Wan’s voice, listening to stories of trade disputes, civil unrest, black market activities. A new pot of tea appears, then disappears. Obi-Wan absently stirs a packet of sweetener into his second cup of tea, the utensil clinking against the ceramic vessel.

“I believe this is the first time you have ever taken me two days off course for a cup of tea,” Obi-Wan remarks. “Though you have taken me to strange places in our time together.”

Qui-Gon cannot help but smile. “You never objected.”

“I objected to Niruan, as I recall, for good reason.”

“Yet you chose to come along regardless,” Qui-Gon observes. “What am I to make of that?”

“You were very convincing.” Obi-Wan’s cup is empty, but he does not move to refill it. 

“I can be persuasive, when I chose.”

“You could convince me of anything,” says Obi-Wan, looking somewhere beyond Qui-Gon. “I would have gone anywhere with you.”

There is a moment of insight that comes to him, then. There’s a feeling of possibility here that he can’t quite explain. Like a door thrown open in invitation, or a window left slightly cracked; he is feeling as though he is standing on the peak of a mountain, looking down, as though at any moment he might tumble into freefall from a great height. And as long as he keeps Obi-Wan near, he has a chance of discovering what possibilities might exist.

He does not examine the feeling too closely. There are certain things that cannot not be seen up close. 

But if he were to take Obi-Wan’s hand and draw him down a road that neither of them have dared to venture before, how far might Obi-Wan allow himself to go?

“Qui-Gon.” Obi-Wan is looking at him, quite seriously. “Are you going to tell me what this is?” 

Qui-Gon stares down into his cup of pale brown tea. “It’s an herbal infusion. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“Not the tea, Qui-Gon,” says Obi-Wan, ever patient with him. But it is clear to both of them that all of Qui-Gon’s stalling tactics will not last forever. Qui-Gon might be as obstinately unyielding as a mountain, but Obi-Wan can be persistent, when he wants to be. And he has been able to get around Qui-Gon's stubborn immovability for years. “Why are we here?”

“I have missed you,” Qui-Gon admits into his teacup. “And I find that I am not ready to give you up again.”

“Was that so hard to say?” Obi-Wan asks, sounding faintly exasperated for the first time. He adds, softer, “I have missed you as well.”

“Thank you for humoring me,” Qui-Gon says. He musters up a crooked smile, for Obi-Wan’s sake. “We can leave, if you are ready.”

And all at once, Obi-Wan is standing next to Qui-Gon's chair, his hand hovering near Qui-Gon’s elbow. “Where to next?” Obi-Wan asks, and Qui-Gon looks up at him in surprise. 

“Next?” he asks slowly.

“There is nowhere you could go where I would not follow you,” Obi-Wan repeats, still so patient with his old master’s sudden obtuseness, still so loyal, and Qui-Gon still can’t look at what that means, right now —it’s too bright, too big, too overwhelming, it could mean too much. Like looking directly into a sun, he cannot see for all the sudden brightness that floods his vision. 

So instead he says, trying to chuckle, “Are you certain? This might become another of my jaunts into whimsy. And you know how those often go.” 

“There, too,” Obi-Wan says. “I doubt I would be permanently affected by a touch of your whimsy. I’ve survived so far.” 

“Of course,” Qui-Gon says gently, allowing himself to be helped up from the table, “of course I’d never thought of you as the whimsical type.”

“No,” Obi-Wan agrees. “I’m really not.” 

He takes Obi-Wan’s hand, and Obi-Wan lets him. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a world with its lakes of red-gold water, there was another with its beaches of soft pink sand. He has written to Obi-Wan of them, describing the way the lake water caught the reflection of the amber clouds that hat hung in the sky, the smooth glass-green pebbles that he had found in the soft pink sand, only to lamely end his missives with You should have been there. And in return, Obi-Wan has written to him about the places he has seen. He has not described natural wonders. He writes of warzones and devastated landscapes, and he does not end his letters with I wish you had been there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to sanerontheinside for sending me the perfect idea at the perfect time!!!

Qui-Gon has always harbored a secret love of beautiful things. Wild, secret places, or a sunrise, or ceramic cups glazed smooth to the touch. Rounding a corner and stumbling across a hidden bit of loveliness, perhaps a blooming vine twisting over the window of a ramshackle dwelling, or the way a path winds out of sight behind a bracket of trees, capturing his imagination until he must know where that path might lead. A worn woven blanket with threads of pink and blue and gold, hanging from a fence. He seeks out these places wherever his travels take him. 

“Picturesque,” Obi-Wan would say dryly when Qui-Gon had them fighting through uncompromising landscapes choked with thorns and briars, in search of hidden treasures. 

“A severe beauty,” Qui-Gon would counter, and they would push through until they stumbled into a clearing where thousands of luminous white flowers bloomed, glowing faintly in that world’s twilight, and even Obi-Wan would sink slowly to his knees and gently touch a shining white flower in wonder.

He had often told Obi-Wan of the places he’d seen, expressing admiration for one place or another and Obi-Wan would listen, and Qui-Gon had anticipated visiting those places with Obi-Wan some day. But there had never been time enough. There have been so many worlds Qui-Gon has seen in the past seven years, moments when he’d turned around to exclaim in wonder of a beautiful sunrise, an inspiring work of beauty, looking to his side where Obi-Wan is supposed to be and missing his presence.

So many times Qui-Gon has felt his absence - acutely, when running for his life and fervently missing the benefits of having a mission partner to guard his back - but sometimes the feeling snuck up on him and caught him by surprise. He had caught a moonrise on Ssrassi that had taken his breath away, the world’s seven moons rising to a peak in the black night sky, and amidst all the beauty, he had felt a sense of loss so deep that left him reeling. 

There was a world with its lakes of red-gold water, there was another with its beaches of soft pink sand. He has written to Obi-Wan of them, describing the way the lake water caught the reflection of the amber clouds that hat hung in the sky, the smooth glass-green pebbles that he had found in the soft pink sand, only to lamely end his missives with _ You should have been there. _ And in return, Obi-Wan has written to him about the places he has seen. He has not described natural wonders. He writes of warzones and devastated landscapes, and he does not end his letters with _ I wish you had been there. _But for all the time he has spent dreaming of having Obi-Wan all to himself again, Qui-Gon is not sure what to do now that he has him. 

  
  
\---  


There’s a minor delay when they stop to refuel on a planet in the midst of their mid-spring moon celebrations. They wander through the crowds, through streets covered in pale pink petals, under septsilk banners and arches hung with flowers, past carts selling sweets and drinks, with bits of brightly-colored paper swirling through the air.

“What’s this?” asks Obi-Wan suspiciously, when Qui-Gon slips a pastry in his hand.

“Edible, I’m sure,” Qui-Gon says. “You used to enjoy trying new things.”

Obi-Wan is frowning thoughtfully down at the pastry. He says, cautiously, “You helped with that a great deal. You were always looking for novel experiences.” 

“The spice of life. It keeps me young,” Qui-Gon tells him. “Come now, it’s not so terrible, surely.”

Obi-Wan takes a bite. “And?” Qui-Gon prompts.

“Perfectly adequate,” is all Obi-Wan says. But he eats all of it.

They are separated briefly as a parade of revelers pass through, and a woman with a garland of flowers hanging loosely on her hair sees his robes and lightsaber and exclaims in wonder. “A Jedi!” she says. Her skin is a very pale blue, like many of the other people on this planet. She tugs his sleeve and pulls him into a crowd of relatives to show him off. _ A Jedi, _ they all say, _ what good fortune, _ and they press flowers into his hands, murmuring _ Luck, luck. _

“We have been invited to a wedding,” he informs Obi-Wan when he finds his way back to Qui-Gon’s side. There are children laughing and tugging at his hands and his robes.

Obi-Wan briefly looks up at the sky. “How do you do that?” Obi-Wan asks. “I leave you for five minutes and when I come back, you have half a dozen new lifelong friends, a wedding invitation, and a future namesake.”

“Er,” says Qui-Gon, gently disentangling himself from the small hands. “My natural good luck, of course. It comes with being in the right place at the right time. We do not have to attend.”

“Of course we do,” says Obi-Wan. “I’m sure it would be terrible luck not to go. Best not to ruin the festivities.”

Qui-Gon blinks in surprise. “What? Where is my lecture? I deserve it, you know. I did use the word _ luck _.”

“I won’t bother with it,” says Obi-Wan, “as I am here in an unofficial capacity. Tell me, are we somehow part of the wedding party again, or simply guests this time?”

He tries to hide his smile. “Do you know,” he informs Obi-Wan mildly, “I believe I miss the lecture. You always include some very nice bits about my heretical sensibilities.”

“I’ll recite it to you on the ship,” Obi-Wan replies with dignity, and takes his arm. 

  
  
\---  


The wedding takes place in a small courtyard, with the festival moon visible even at midday, hanging low and immense in the horizon, taking up most of the sky. It is considered very good fortune indeed to be married at this auspicious time. They stand in the back of the crowd to watch the wedding. Then, before the ceremony is quite finished, they slip away down an empty alley and out of the city limits, to the hills and plains just beyond. 

Qui-Gon’s restless feet take them across the hills. There must be something just beyond that ridge, and the next. He has often remarked to Obi-Wan that if one is looking, there is often something to be found. Their lives as Jedi had rarely afforded them moments of leisure or taken them to places of beauty. But they had often manage to share together a moment here and there, to look at a sky filled with color, or for Qui-Gon to seek out a small bit of wilderness where they could meditate together and drink in the quiet sounds of wind or water. 

Out here, there is a bit of wilderness that is begging to be found, a few trees clustered together on the top of a hilltop. Qui-Gon stands under the trees at the top of the hill for a moment, looking down at the grassy slopes below. 

Obi-Wan leans against the trunk of a tree and lets himself slide down until he is sitting on the ground, and he takes off his boots. Obi-Wan settles against the trunk and runs his hand through the grass thoughtfully. 

Qui-Gon watches him for a moment. Then he lays down on the grass, arms behind his head, and closes his eyes. 

The shadows that move with the branches alternates with the sunlight on his face, and he drifts into a shallow sleep that never quite takes him all the way under. He lightly skims the surface of sleep, never entirely unaware of the movement of the sun or the wind moving through the grass, or Obi-Wan’s quiet presence not so very far away. He does not truly dream. It is more like he is already in a dream, and he is simply sinking deeper into it. 

He comes back slowly, and then all at once. There is a light sensation tickling his nose. He opens his eyes, and sees a long white feather in Obi-Wan’s hand. He smiles at Obi-Wan sheepishly. 

“I suppose you learned that bit of mischief from me,” he allows. 

“It was not always a particularly pleasant way to wake up,” replies Obi-Wan with dancing eyes.

Qui-Gon sits up and combs grass and dirt out of his hair with his fingers. Obi-Wan reaches over and pulls a leaf from his hair. Qui-Gon holds still, and Obi-Wan smooths down the hair on the back of his head. Obi-Wan’s hand drops away. He allows several leaves to fall into the grass beside the feather. 

Qui-Gon picks up the feather and runs it lightly through his fingers. “Winner buys dinner?” offers Qui-Gon, holding the feather out invitingly.

“All right,” Obi-Wan says. “But I should warn you.” His smile is almost hidden in his beard. But Qui-Gon can see the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’m the reigning push-feather master of Dragon Clan.” He moves opposite Qui-Gon and puts out his hand. 

The feather blows toward Obi-Wan, then back to Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon mildly pushes the feather into an updraft and causes it to skitter in a roundabout way to the side. The feather idly sidles closer towards Obi-Wan in a casual, nothing-to-see-here sort of way. Obi-Wan lets him get away with this for a while, deftly batting the feather aside when it gets too close. 

Oscillations, Qui-Gon thinks again. This back and forth between them, the way Qui-Gon allows himself to drift closer to Obi-Wan without really letting himself think about what he’s doing. The way Obi-Wan keeps letting himself to be tugged along, and how he will all once pull back again. How close will Obi-Wan let him get? The feather dances mischievously close to Obi-Wan’s bare foot. This, it seems, will not stand. A sudden blast of wind plasters the feather directly into Qui-Gon’s nose and mouth. 

He snorts, and Obi-Wan leans across and peels the feather out from where it has gotten tangled in Qui-Gon’s beard. “Your treat.” 

What feels right next, after that, is to take Obi-Wan’s hand. He turns it over, examining the stark white scar that disappears beyond his sleeve. Obi-Wan lets him pull his sleeve up and trace the scar down his arm to where it ends at his elbow. 

“What happened here?” Qui-Gon asks.

“A mistake,” Obi-Wan says flatly, and Qui-Gon huffs gently. “I was careless, let a Trandoshan mercenary get the jump on me. I should not have allowed myself to be caught off guard.”

“Was it...?”

Obi-Wan looks away. “It was my last mission before Ruuan,” Obi-Wan answers. He falls silent. Qui-Gon nods silently. Obi-Wan had not written to him of that mission, afterwards. 

He regrets the question. Obi-Wan has folded back inside himself. Qui-Gon would like to draw him back out again, if he can. Qui-Gon keeps ahold of his hand, idly tracing circles on the back of Obi-Wan’s hand with his thumb. 

“You became so serious, so quickly,” Qui-Gon sighs. “Innocence is lost so quickly. And Jedi are never children. You had seen so much death by the time you were grown. You never got to play, to explore. I have always regretted that.”

Obi-Wan stirs. “You tried, I remember,” he says. “You took me to the beach once and told me to do whatever I wanted. And I didn’t know what to do.”

Qui-Gon remembers that occasion. Obi-Wan, looking at the vast expanse of the beach, and then dubiously at Qui-Gon when he was told to go play. _ I don’t know how _ , Obi-Wan had said. _ Shouldn’t we be doing something? _

_ We are, _Qui-Gon remembered saying, and how he had taken off his boots and watched as Obi-Wan finally begin to stack a tower of rocks thoughtfully.

Qui-Gon risks a glance at him now. He’s still here, after all. He has not left yet. And Qui-Gon wants what he has always wanted: Time, more time. 

He leans over Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “There’s something here we should do,” he says in Obi-Wan’s ear. 

Obi-Wan almost shivers. “I trust you.”

“We should not less this opportunity pass us by,” says Qui-Gon, and he stands up and pulls himself up on the lowest branch of the tree. 

Several branches higher, and he is looking down at Obi-Wan’s incredulous face. He quirks his mouth. “I thought you trusted me.”

“In theory,” says Obi-Wan, “but not so much in practical application.” 

The last part of him Obi-Wan must see is Qui-Gon’s legs disappearing into the branches. It must be tantalizing enough of a sight to convince Obi-Wan to follow him, because when Qui-Gon reaches the top of the tree, Obi-Wan is clamoring up just behind him. 

He has to pause and catch his breath. Climbing had been more of a challenge than it perhaps ought to be. “I’m too old for this,” he says ruefully.

“You’ll never be too old for this,” says Obi-Wan, not even slightly out of breath, balancing on a limb just below him. “You will be a hundred years old, and I will be a wise old master, and the Council will send me off to fetch you out of a tree on some uncivilized planet.”

“I suppose, then, it is to my benefit to ensure that you have ample practice getting up and down trees well before that day arrives.”

“Hmm,” says Obi-Wan, pulling himself up to the branch beside Qui-Gon, and then he says, with some surprise, “_ Oh _.”

From this height, they can see the city just below the hills, the colors of the flowers and the banners mixing together. But Obi-Wan is looking up at the sky, where the white moon hangs above them, shining even in the afternoon sunlight. 

“It looks close enough to touch,” Obi-Wan says, squinting up into the sky. 

They perch on their branch, legs hanging loosely into the air. The things you find, thinks Qui-Gon, the things you find when you are ready to look. What else might make Obi-Wan's face soften this way? 

He is turning this thought around in his mind when Obi-Wan shakes himself out of his reverie and nudges against Qui-Gon’s shoulder. “I believe,” he says, “that you owe me a meal.”

  
  
\---  
  


It is almost night by the time they leave the planet. They crowd each other in the cramped cockpit, projecting an astronomical chart inside the cabin of their ship. Miniscule planets and moons hovering in the air, illuminated in flickering blue light. 

Obi-Wan is leaning with his elbows on the console, propping his chin up with his hands. He reaches up to send solar systems spinning in midair, and points of light dance across the back of his hand. “There are so many places,” he is saying. “More than I ever imagined, even when I was young. We went to so many of these worlds together. I have still been more places with you than I have been by myself.” 

“Is there one you liked best?” Qui-Gon asks him.

Obi-Wan laughs, his fingers wandering from his chin to cover his mouth. He has not always hidden his laughter that way. “I liked some more than others. As did you.”

“That’s so,” Qui-Gon admits. Telos is spinning close to his elbow, and he flicks it away. There are forests of Kubari, or the towering black pillars jutting from the earth on Tzarin. It would be a shame to let Obi-Wan go without showing him these things. 

“Isn’t there somewhere you’d like to go?” he asks wistfully. He’s thinking about the way Obi-Wan’s face had lit up when he looked up at the sky from the branches of a tree. He wants to see what else might bring that wonder to his face. What else Obi-Wan might find beautiful. 

Obi-Wan touches a planet and halts its slow drift across the cabin. “Yes,” he says. “I believe there is.”

  
  
\---  


Obi-Wan brings him to a vast garden on a world on the outskirts of the Core. The gardens here go on all across the main continent of the world, with plants cultivated from hundreds of thousands of worlds. Paths wind through the carefully crafted landscapes, past formal Chandrilian gardens with sculptures and hedges, though meadows allowed to grow riotously with waist-high Dantooine starflowers in silver and blue. There are more gardens here than anyone can see in a day, or even years. 

“I remember this place,” Qui-Gon marvels, crouching on the silver-tipped grass to study the golden-spotted Hapes lillies climbing up the side of a hill. “We came here once. It must have been fifteen years ago, at least. What made you think of it?” 

“You did,” says Obi-Wan. “I remember seeing you here. How you knew the names of all the plants, how you pointed them out to me. I thought you might never want to leave.”

“I had not thought you cared so much for looking at flowers,” Qui-Gon says, carefully stroking the petals of one smooth amber petal. 

“It wasn’t the flowers,” says Obi-Wan seriously. “You were pleased to be here. And I liked seeing you that way.”

“Me?” Qui-Gon asks, surprised.

Obi-Wan kneels at his side. “You had told me about this place. You thought it was beautiful. And I was interested in what you thought was so wonderful.” 

Qui-Gon shakes his head. “My opinions on flowers are surely not so important as all that.”

“It was important,” says Obi-Wan, in a way that seems careful. “It was something of yourself, something that you loved, that you were willing to share with me.”

Qui-Gon does not know what to say. He is finding it difficult to look up from the bright gold petals under his fingertips, the dusky specks brushing across the blossoms like freckles. 

When he does look up, Obi-Wan is gazing at him. Obi-Wan says thoughtfully, “I believe those are tigris bellflowers just up ahead. I look forward to your observations concerning them.”

“Excellent,” says Qui-Gon. He stands up and brushes the dirt off his knees. “Lead on.” 

  
  
\---  


There’s a moment when they’re playing sabacc on the floor of their ship, passing a bottle of Corellian brandy back and forth, and Obi-Wan looks over at him and confides, “It wasn’t a place.”

Qui-Gon is beginning to feel mellow, which is likely due to the brandy, but at Obi-Wan’s words he looks up sharply. There’s a risk of the brandy also drawing out his own maudlin tendencies, but he has waved aside the risk in favor of wanting to know what might happen. Curiosity, he can well admit, is what has always gotten him into so much trouble. He might be well on his way to exactly that sort of trouble right now. 

“What wasn’t a place?”

“What I liked best,” Obi-Wan says. He is leaning against the side of his bunk, his legs stretching out precariously near Qui-Gon’s turned-over cards. “All the time we were together. It wasn't a place. This is what I liked the most.”

Qui-Gon cannot help but shake his head, incredulous. “Playing sabacc on the floor, in a retrofitted cargo ship? You aren't even comfortable.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, and he lays down a card and rubs his chin. “No. Well. I do like this. It was about being the one you wanted to go places with. Traveling together. That was the best part of being with you.” 

Qui-Gon rubs the corner of a card. “I always liked taking you places. You were interested in everything,” Qui-Gon remembers. "Occasionally to your peril."

But it still takes him by surprise when Obi-Wan looks up at him and says, “You don't have to do anything to make me want to spend time with you, you know. It’s enough to be with you. I just want to be wherever you are.”

Qui-Gon stares at his cards. "Obi-Wan-" he begins.

“Oh, I know,” Obi-Wan says, to himself. He lays down his hand absently, then looks down at his own cards. “I’ve bombed out,” he notes. But Qui-Gon is not really thinking about his own good fortune in possessing a perfect set of twenty-three, because Obi-Wan is looking at him strangely, all lit up from the inside out. 

Obi-Wan says, “There is something I want you to see.”

  
  
\---  
  


The world that Obi-Wan brings him to is an austere, uninhabited moon, nothing but vast gray seas and rocky coastlines, continents with plateaus and jutting rock outcroppings, and rust-colored dust that settles into the folds of their clothes. Somewhere beyond the plateau a treeline begins, severe, weathered trees with dark green needles. 

Up and down the valleys of the plateau are the most unusual formations, tall pipes of hollowed-out stone, hanging from the cliffs. It is a harsh landscape. Qui-Gon breathes deeply. For all the barrness, he can feel the living Force rippling with life around him. 

The sun is setting below the sea, and the sky is filling with clouds illuminated in golds and reds and a hint of purple, here and here. 

“Listen,” murmurs Obi-Wan. “It should happen any moment now-”

The wind is picking up, tearing at their robes and sending curtains of rust-red dust whipping across the landscape, and then Qui-Gon hears a faint sound echoing up from the canyon floor, notes like a disassembled melody played from a flute. The rock formations, Qui-Gon realizing, are in fact pipes, and the wind is their musician. So this is what Obi-Wan found so beautiful. 

“I came here, six years ago,” says Obi-Wan. “I thought it was beautiful. But when I was here, all I could think about was showing this to you.” 

There is a tremor in his hands. Qui-Gon slides them into the sleeves of his robes. “You thought of me, when you were here?”

“I never stopped thinking about you. Not once in all these years,” says Obi-Wan. “Thinking of you. And missing you.”

The wind picks up, roaring through the canyon and playing a wild cacophony of notes. There is no tune, no rhythm, no melody; only the desolate tones. And yet it is so beautiful Qui-Gon’s throat aches to hear it. 

“You find beauty everywhere,” Obi-Wan says. “In hidden places, where I’d never think to look. It always amazes me how you do that. I think you must make things beautiful just by the way you look at them.”

Obi-Wan draws near him, pressing against his shoulder, and Qui-Gon leans into him as the discordant symphony plays on. And he knows, then, where he wants to take Obi-Wan. 

“Come,” he says after some time has passed, and Obi-Wan looks up at him. “There’s one last thing I want you to see.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan stops on the edge of the ravine. He has a curious look on his face. “It feels like—” He shakes his head. “Have I been here before? This feels so familiar.”
> 
> “Perhaps, in a way,” Qui-Gon answers elusively. By all rights, Obi-Wan ought to inquire further for answers - Obi-Wan has never liked to allow things to remain unsettled, to have matters undefined for very long. But Obi-Wan does not press him further. Instead he follows Qui-Gon down to the river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cranks the sentimentality up to 13*

They land in the midst of a forest on a quiet world where winter has only just given way to spring. 

Here on this world, the trees are still bare of leaves, with only a hint of green haze of new growth clinging to their branches, and the air is still so cold that Qui-Gon can see his breath when he speaks. 

Qui-Gon sets out, following an old instinct. He has not been on this world in perhaps thirty years. Perhaps longer. Still, his feet remember the way. Their boots crunch softly over new grass, pale green and still frozen from an overnight frost. 

It takes most of a day to reach their destination. Qui-Gon heads north through the forest and then into a mountainous territory, up and over sharp ridges and peaks, until the land drops abruptly into a ravine cut by a wide river. 

It is late afternoon, almost evening. The sun is beginning to set, spilling warm light across the water below. Obi-Wan stops on the edge of the ravine. He has a curious look on his face. “It feels like—” He shakes his head. “Have I been here before? This feels so familiar.”

“Perhaps, in a way,” Qui-Gon answers elusively. By all rights, Obi-Wan ought to inquire further for answers - Obi-Wan has never liked to allow things to remain unsettled, to have matters undefined for very long. But Obi-Wan does not press him further. Instead he follows Qui-Gon down to the river.

The riverbank is treacherous with gnarled tree roots rising up unexpectedly and loose rocks underfoot. In the late afternoon light, Qui-Gon can see how all the variegated rock that crops out of the ground here is cut through with veins of clear crystal. 

The river is deep but calm, and the current moves slowly here. Further downstream, Qui-Gon remembers, the river will narrow into shallow water, and there are shoals where the water rushes briskly over rocks and currents get caught in swirling white eddies. 

The last of the daylight glints on the surface of the water, and little flashes of brightness catch Qui-Gon’s eye; the quick-moving fish with their pale pink iridescent scales that dart around the rocks on the river bottom. The river is clear enough to see how the water runs over a bed of smooth stones. And in the air, he can almost hear a song, a harmony of balance that calls to him, the living Force, concentrated here like no where else Qui-Gon has ever been.

They walk along the side of the river until they come across a shallow sandbank. There is a wide, flat rock by the edge of the water here, variegated in shades of pink and ochre, gray and brown, and dusted with flecks of crystal. Qui-Gon lays their packs on the sandbank and climbs up on the rock. 

Obi-Wan follows him and sits at his side. Despite the frigid air, Obi-Wan takes his boots off and rolls up the hem of his pants almost to his knees, and Qui-Gon does the same. There is the roughness of the rock underneath his foot, and Obi-Wan’s warmth beside him, and a fine mist of bitingly cold water that sometimes splashes up from the river on his face and bare legs.

Obi-Wan is looking around, at the water, at the rocks. “I almost know this place,” Obi-Wan is saying. “But I have never been here before, not that I can remember. Qui-Gon, where are we?” 

Qui-Gon tilts his face up to catch the last remaining rays of sun. “This is the River of Light,” he tells Obi-Wan. “I have carried around a memory of this place all my life. I thought it might have simply been a dream I had once, when I was a child. But when I was a young man, I returned to this world, and I came here. And it was as though I had never left.” 

Obi-Wan releases a breath that hangs in the cold air for a long moment afterward. “This is your homeworld.”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon answers. “My father was a fisherman in this river, a long ways south of here. Do you recall the rock I gave you once?”

Obi-Wan reaches into a pocket inside his tunic. He opens his fingers, and there is a smooth river stone in the palm of his hand, polished black streaked with red. 

“You keep it with you?” Qui-Gon asks in surprise. 

“You gave it to me,” Obi-Wan says, and Qui-Gon shakes his head, wondering at how this one peculiar gesture of his had somehow been enough to have inspired such sentiment in return. To be cherished in this way. He had not supposed Obi-Wan would attach such value to such a small gift. Obi-Wan must catch his surprise, because he says. “You gave it to me, something that had been yours. It was meaningful to you. That made it important to me. It helped me feel connected to you.” 

Qui-Gon nods towards the water. “That rock came from this river.” 

Obi-Wan strokes the smooth surface of the river stone with his thumb, absently, a habitual gesture. “It belongs,” he says, understanding. “I can feel how it belongs here.”

“There are traces of kyber in the rocks here,” Qui-Gon tells him. “Not large enough to be mined for saber crystals. But there are bits of kyber all over here, flecks in the rocks, on the land here, and under the water. There is a vein that runs beneath the river.”

Obi-Wan looks down at the river stone in his hand. 

“Yes,” says Qui-Gon, “and in that, too. May I?”

Obi-Wan puts the river stone in Qui-Gon’s hand. Qui-Gon turns it over. The river stone is still warm with the heat of Obi-Wan’s skin. 

It has been a long time since he has seen the river stone he had carried around for over half his lifetime. The flecks of crystal inside still sing to Qui-Gon, a peculiar harmony of white-bright midday sunlight, and the coolness of riverwater, and of home. It resonates with him the same way the crystal in the lightsaber he carries reverberates in his blood when he sends the blade sparking to life. 

For so many years, this river stone had been a source of comfort, a signal that recalled his earliest feelings and almost-memories, a home that moved along with him to every place he has been. It had been enough to make him feel connected to something greater than only himself, when he had stood next to his master and felt so very alone. And now the river stone seems to know that it is back in the place where it first belonged. It sings to the other rocks on the riverbed, the pebbles on the bottom of the river, the vein of crystal far under the ground. 

“It called to me,” says Qui-Gon. “Like it was always meant to be in my hand. I felt that it had chosen me. And so I carried it for years. Then you came into my life, and I was chosen again. I found that I had a home as long as you were near. And I knew that this rock was meant to be with you.”

He places the river stone back in Obi-Wan’s palm and closes Obi-Wan’s hand around it. He keeps his own large hands wrapped around Obi-Wan’s closed fingers. “Like this,” Qui-Gon says. “I want to show you.”

He closes his eyes and allows himself to sink into the living Force that hums all around him, the quiet noise of the water rushing past and the dusk falling down and the cold air, the bare branches of the trees swaying in a sudden wind, the steady light that is Obi-Wan at his side, and he focuses it all through the river stone that rests in Obi-Wan’s hand inside his own hands, until the river stone radiates warmth in their hands like a sun, illuminated like a ray of light shining through a prism. The river stone belongs to the living Force here, and through it, so does Qui-Gon, falling into balance, a single note in the harmony. 

“Is this the way?” Obi-Wan asks, and Qui-Gon murmurs his assent. “Oh, I see,” says Obi-Wan, understanding, “like this,” and he brings his own focus and concentration to bear in the river stone, and he falls into the harmony alongside Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan places his other hand on the surface of the rock beneath them, and the brightness and warmth grows, spreading out all around them. 

He hangs inside the living Force with Obi-Wan beside him. They are balanced together in this moment. Qui-Gon finds himself thinking of a feather being pushed one way and pulled another, caught up in a wind and floating for one moment, then spiraling down in a dizzying descent. But they are not pushing or pulling, they are neither flying nor falling; it is both, and neither. A perfect balance. 

There is something new and wild taking shape in the balance between them, a sudden new feeling welling up from the depths of him. It is as though his soul had briefly abandoned his body and expanded in the cool night air, and then returned, several sizes too large to fit comfortably back inside his chest. He is lightheaded with this source of unexpected joy. 

He does not know how long they hang in the balance, the living Force spreading between them and around them, with his hands cradling Obi-Wan’s and joy running through him like a current. 

When Qui-Gon opens his eyes again, night has fallen. Pale stars are scattered in the black sky. A pair of crescent moons hang above the trees, one curving gently towards the other, sending a dim moonlight that falls down and turns the silhouette of the trees into silver. And the river is alight. 

The river is lit up from within. Far below the surface, the pebbles and stones that make up the riverbed are shining like a thousand miniature stars fallen from out of the night, an unsteady current of luminosity, wavering now and then, shining brighter for a flash like a pulsating star and then fading down to a subdued brilliance. 

The water lights up the darkness. Qui-Gon can see Obi-Wan’s face illuminated in the soft glow.

“The River of Light,” Obi-Wan says. His voice is filled with awe. 

“A focus,” Qui-Gon says quietly. “A conduit for the living Force. All this life, focused here in an unending circle.”

“I never dreamed,” murmurs Obi-Wan, more reverent than Qui-Gon has ever seen him before, “I never dreamed there could be anything like this in the galaxy. In the universe.”

He tips his face downward towards the riverlight. Qui-Gon is caught by the soft expression there. Some secret part of Qui-Gon has been waiting to see Obi-Wan like this, in a way no one else has ever seen before. Under the moonlight, with light in his hair, his face open and full of wonder. And now Qui-Gon cannot look away.

Obi-Wan leans over the river and dips his hands in the water. “Oh, it’s warm,” he says in surprise. He holds his hand still and lets the bright water run between his fingers. The radiance of the water makes his fingers glow a soft pink. 

“It’s beautiful,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “I have never seen anything like this before.”

“I always meant to bring you here,” Qui-Gon says. “I have regretted that I did not. There never seemed to be enough time.”

He can hear Obi-Wan’s quiet sigh. “Twelve years is quite a lot of time, Qui-Gon.”

He shakes his head. There is so much he means to say, and he cannot find the words. “All I showed you those twelve years was death, and wars, and destruction.”

For a time, there is nothing but silence between them, and the river. Then Obi-Wan says, “I never wrote to you of Ruuan.”

“No. You did not.” 

“You remember what it was like,” Obi-Wan says slowly. “When we left Ruuan, there were settlements, families, agriculture. Despite all that had happened before, when we left, I thought there was a possibility of their peace lasting forever. But when I returned, what I found...” 

Qui-Gon knows. He had read the report.

“Ruuan was—” Obi-Wan bends his head. The back of his neck looks oddly vulnerable, where his hair curls behind his ear. “I have never seen anything like it, Qui-Gon. There was so much death. So much destruction. It was genocide. It would have broken your heart to see it, Qui-Gon. And I was too late to save any part of it.”

“It hurts me that you had to bear witness to such things.” He takes a deep breath. The cold air makes his chest ache. “There is more to see in the galaxy than that. And I wanted to be the one to show it to you.”

Obi-Wan draws his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around his knees, rocking slightly. “You showed me more than death. You showed me families, communities. Happiness. Contentment. Love. Wonderful things, Qui-Gon. You showed me how much it is worth, all of it. There is so much you love about this galaxy. I would do anything to save the worlds you showed me.”

“All that you could not have,” Qui-Gon cannot help lamenting. “All that you could never experience.”

“I had all those things.” Obi-Wan is smiling down at his knees. “You were there. You made up for everything else. It was enough, to be with you. You are all I ever wanted.”

There is something taking shape inside his chest, something rising up and getting caught somewhere under his ribs. And even when he lets out his breath, his chest is still tight. He has to place his hand on his chest to make sure his heart is beating, to calm himself. “How can you know that?” Qui-Gon breathes.

Obi-Wan says, with a simple sureness, “I just know.”

“You have always been so sure,” Qui-Gon says, awed. Humbled, as well. “You have always been so certain about me. Even when I could not find anything in myself to believe in. But you wanted to be with me. I do not know why you did. I was not welcoming to you. But I cannot tell you what that meant to me, knowing that you wanted to be with me.” He swallows hard. “Obi-Wan, you mustn’t think I ever cared for you any less because of my hesitation. You have become—” But he cannot continue. 

“I know,” says Obi-Wan, and puts his hand over Qui-Gon’s. Qui-Gon looks down at that, at their hands together in the riverlight. Obi-Wan does know. Twelve years of love and devotion to each other. He knows. Qui-Gon can take comfort in that.

“You are my dearest friend,” Qui-Gon says, and Obi-Wan leans his head against Qui-Gon’s shoulder. It’s an oddly vulnerable gesture for Obi-Wan, who would usually prefer to have Qui-Gon believe that he is entirely stoic. What is it costing him to do this? Qui-Gon wonders, and he feels a sudden tightness in his throat. He tightens his grip on Obi-Wan’s hand. 

“And you are mine.” 

Qui-Gon presses his cheek against Obi-Wan’s head, where it rests on his shoulder. “You made me fall in love with being alive again, with your fresh eyes looking at everything I showed you, so pleased to see it all. For so long I had lived a half-life. With no joy. Then you came to me, with all your light and love, and I was living again.” 

“You brought me light, when I was lost in the darkness,” he says into Obi-Wan’s hair. “That is what you have always meant to me.”

He can feel in Obi-Wan a sureness so vast and complete that it reaches all the down to the bedrock that is his core, how Qui-Gon has always been what he wants. But there is a quiet surprise and wonder underneath all that conviction, in hearing that Qui-Gon should have the same certainty about him.

“Qui-Gon. Why did you bring me here?”

“I never taught you to seek out joy,” says Qui-Gon seriously. “Instead of merely accepting what little comes your way. I have wanted to show you that there are still wonderful things. That there is still joy to be found.” 

There is quiet for a while as Obi-Wan absorbs his words. “And what about you?”

Qui-Gon does not know how to answer. Obi-Wan waits patiently. “My happiness is bound up in you,” he says finally. “Surely you must know by now. Every joy I have found, every bright spot in the darkness, all of it was because of you.”

Obi-Wan’s hair is warm against his cheek. “I was not ready to let you go,” Qui-Gon confesses. “There was so many places I never got to show you. There was so much I meant to do with you. I wasn’t ready for our time together to be over.”

He feels more than hears Obi-Wan’s sigh. “Here and now, Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan says, soft and perhaps a little reproving. “There’s still time.”

“Not enough,” says Qui-Gon. He closes his eyes. “I will have to let you go again.” 

“I’m here now,” Obi-Wan says. “Qui-Gon. You are always finding little joys, your hidden treasures. Cups of tea and trees and sunsets. But you will never ask for more. Isn’t there something you want?”

His chest aches so, it hard to speak. “There is,” he answers.

“Then why don’t you ask for it?” Obi-Wan asks, quieter. 

“I cannot-”

Obi-Wan is looking at him reproachfully. “Do you not think you deserve any more than what you already have?” 

“I don’t—,” he begins with difficulty, “I do not deserve _ you. _ Oh, Obi-Wan.”

When he dares to look up, Obi-Wan is looking at him as though he is responsible for all of the wonder there is to be found in the universe, and Qui-Gon has done nothing to deserve it. But he is grateful all the same, more so than he can ever admit out loud, that Obi-Wan still looks at him and sees something worthwhile in him. 

Then Obi-Wan is standing up without letting go of Qui-Gon’s hand, and then he is drawing Qui-Gon up as well, until they are standing at the edge of the rock, looking down into the bright water below. The water is so clear and so filled with light that he can see right down to the bottom of the river, the golden pebbles of the riverbed. 

“Come with me,” he says, and Qui-Gon tries not to shiver. 

Qui-Gon stares at him, astonished. “You’re not serious.”

“No,” agrees Obi-Wan. “I don’t intend to be serious at all. Are you coming?”

Qui-Gon takes off his clothes and places them neatly in a bundle on the rock next to his cloak and boots. Obi-Wan’s clothes are placed on top of his bundle. He does not look at Obi-Wan. Then he is standing at the edge of the rock, bracing himself against the cold air, and Obi-Wan is taking his hand again. 

“Trust me,” says Obi-Wan, and they jump in. 

The water comes over his head. His eyes are open, but he cannot see for all the blinding light underneath the water. His feet scrape briefly against the rocks at the bottom of the river, and he kicks back to the surface. He comes up for air with a gasp. 

There are drops of water clinging to his eyelashes. He blinks them away. The glacial air chills his face, but the water is warm. 

Obi-Wan is still clinging to his hand. He rises out of the water until his shoulders are visible. Water is streaming from his hair and dripping from his beard. This close, Qui-Gon can see what he has never noticed before, freckles on the tops of his shoulders. 

Obi-Wan reaches towards him and brushes a drop of water off his nose. His eyes are crinkling in a smile. He touches the damp ends of Qui-Gon’s hair. And suddenly a thousand doors and windows are unlocking inside Qui-Gon’s heart, opening up to usher in a certain long-buried hope he had locked away long ago. 

“You kept my rock,” he says in wonder.

Obi-Wan is laughing at him. There is light caught in his hair and light in his eyes, he is so filled with light that Qui-Gon cannot look away.

“Of course I did,” says Obi-Wan, “I love you.”

There are a thousand possibilities in this moment, currents that could take him any number of places, any number of destinies, all his for the choosing. He has always allowed himself to drift on those currents, letting the Force pull him this way and that, a feather rising and falling in an unpredictable wind. He has never been certain of his own fortune. Qui-Gon has never known where the living Force might lead him. But he knows beyond a doubt what he intends to do next.

He places his hands on the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and draws him closer, and kisses him.

For a moment, all he can hear is the soft sound of water rushing between them, and the sound of a slow, wondering kiss that goes all the way to Qui-Gon’s knees and leaves him shaking, until he has to let his forehead drop and rest on Obi-Wan’s and brace his arms on Obi-Wan’s shoulders.

He is lightheaded, reeling with all the choices he has made in his lifetime that have lead him to this particular moment. This particular choice. He will drift away, float straight up to the sky, he is certain of it. Perhaps he will get caught on one of the double moons and hang there for a while. But Obi-Wan’s arms come up around his waist, holding him steady. 

Qui-Gon brushes back the hair that always seems to fall into Obi-Wan’s eyes, and presses his lips to the bridge of Obi-Wan’s nose, then to the corners of Obi-Wan’s eyes, where lines have started to form where it crinkles when he smiles. 

“Every joy. Every joy, in you,” he is saying, and Obi-Wan is kissing him, until he is so filled with light that he cannot see for all the brightness in his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of the sounds Obi-Wan makes might imply that more reasonable people - one of whom is Obi-Wan, in fact - often elect to sleep in on their mornings off. Qui-Gon does his best to convince him otherwise. 
> 
> “How are you awake?” Obi-Wan asks without opening his eyes.
> 
> “I never slept,” Qui-Gon explains.

He cannot help but kiss Obi-Wan awake before the sun has even appeared in the sky. 

In the gray light of early dawn, he takes Obi-Wan’s face in his hands and makes a thorough reconnaissance of his familiar features. He has woken up beside Obi-Wan before, but never like this, on the other side of a night when Obi-Wan had looked at him (with _ these _ eyes) and kissed him (with _ this _ mouth, right here) and stroked his hair (with _ these _ hands). He brings Obi-Wan’s hands up to his lips and kisses the tips of his fingers until Obi-Wan begins to stir. 

The hair that Obi-Wan always tries to keep combed tidily back, that always ends up falling in his eyes. The tired circles under his eyes that even two weeks of enforced frivolity have not eased. The brows that are still furrowed together, even in sleep; the way the corners of his mouth turn downward, tucked into a frown. He has slept like this all the time Qui-Gon has known him, concentrating on sleep as intensely as everything else he does while he is awake. Obi-Wan never does anything by halves. Qui-Gon has seen the way he brings his focus to bear on mastering a kata or solving a diplomatic crisis. Qui-Gon finds he cannot bear to let another moment pass without having Obi-Wan open his eyes and turn that focus on him.

So he presses kisses here and there, on the lids of his eyes, the corner of his mouth, the spot where his hair curls over his ear; a meandering journey across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Qui-Gon has spent a long sleepless night without his company, after all. It is suddenly quite impossible to be alive in this glorious morning without causing Obi-Wan, who is not yet entirely awake, to make noises that sound both pleased at Qui-Gon’s attentions but also dubious of the wisdom of a romance with someone who is frequently awake before the dawn. 

Some of the sounds Obi-Wan makes might imply that more reasonable people - one of whom is Obi-Wan, in fact - often elect to sleep in on their mornings off. Qui-Gon does his best to convince him otherwise. 

“How are you awake?” Obi-Wan asks without opening his eyes.

“I never slept,” Qui-Gon explains, and goes back to his exploration of the freckles on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. 

There is a determined silence for a while. Then, just as Qui-Gon is nibbling the tip of his ear, he says, “You didn’t sleep?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about you,” he clarifies. He adds, apologetically, “And I’ve always been a morning person.”

“I suppose,” says Obi-Wan, gasping a little as Qui-Gon’s investigation takes a brief detour to the hollow of his throat, “that this is a better way of being woken up than others.”

Qui-Gon agrees.

They do not leave the shelter of their thermal blankets for some time.

Obi-Wan, as he tartly reminds Qui-Gon afterwards, is still not a morning person. Even so, he allows himself to be convinced to follow Qui-Gon up the ravine to witness the sun rising up from behind a ridge of mountains, from the top of a hill with early spring flowers growing wild despite the chill in the surrounding meadowland. 

The ground is cold. Qui-Gon wraps the edges of his cloak around him more tightly as he sits. The tip of Obi-Wan’s nose is pink from the raw air. He settles next to Qui-Gon, and together they watch the sun rise in silence.

The sunlight turns the sky pink, then orange. Qui-Gon tilts his face toward the sky and feels the warmth of the sun on his cheeks and hair. The sky goes to gold and then begins to fade to blue, with an intermittent pink cloud here and there. 

Obi-Wan is leaning against him, a line of warmth down his side, releasing occasional little it-is-far-too-early-for-this huffs of air, a sound Qui-Gon has been hearing nearly every morning for well over a decade. Qui-Gon wraps an arm around his shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of his head. Obi-Wan’s hair smells like smoke from last night’s fire. 

Then it is a new day, and Obi-Wan is scrubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and yawning, saying, “Qui-Gon. _ Qui-Gon _. Did you remember to pack the tea?”

\---

He did not.

\---

There is a packet of dehydrated caf, however. He considerately offers it to Obi-Wan, who accepts it but grumbles about its inferiority for some time, even after he has finished off the cup.

They linger at the river for some time, even after they pack up their blankets and supplies. “We should leave soon,” says Obi-Wan rather regretfully. “The navigation computer said it would still take seventeen hours back to Coruscant.”

Qui-Gon is not particularly concerned. “We’ll make up the time in hyperspace,” he suggests mischievously. “We can take a shortcut.”

“That’s not how hyperspace works,” says Obi-Wan, reproachful. Still, he makes no real attempt to coax Qui-Gon into joining him in fretting about trivialities such as available fuel cells and council appointments. Instead he watches as Qui-Gon walks around the riverbanks, picking up rocks and examining each one, selecting likely candidates and making a stack of the flattest rocks by the edge of the river. 

Qui-Gon selects a particularly flat rock and skims it expertly against the flat line of the river, then another. Obi-Wan watches intently as he flicks his wrist and sends a third rock spinning against the surface of the water. 

Obi-Wan makes a noise of cultured disdain. “Twelve,” he says. “I can beat that.”

“Try your luck.”

“There is no luck,” says Obi-Wan, serene, “only the Force,” and sends a stone skipping across the water to reach the other bank. “Seventeen.”

“Hmm.” Qui-Gon picks up a rock from the stack and skates it out in a slow twist, rippling the water where it touches down.

Obi-Wan feels around the bank and comes up with another rock. He hefts it in his hand, considering. “Rocks always remind me of you,” he says thoughtfully.

“I’m not sure I will appreciate the comparison. But let’s hear it.”

“Well,” says Obi-Wan, looking up at him through the hair falling in his eyes, “rocks are rather dense. It took you long enough to take me on a date.” 

Qui-Gon feels a surge of so much affection for him right then that he must pull Obi-Wan down in the mud and grass of the riverbank in order to whisper endearments into his ear and to press a line of kisses down his neck, until Obi-Wan stops sighing and havering about departure times and flight plans, and starts kissing him back. 

When Qui-Gon finally lets him up, Obi-Wan has grass stains on his tunics, a scattering of small red insect bites on his arms and legs, and a satisfied smile on his face that he doesn’t bother trying to hide.

Obi-Wan surveys him. “You look like a wild man,” says Obi-Wan. “Some kind of forest creature.”

“Hmm,” says Qui-Gon. He glances down at himself. His own tunics look much the same as Obi-Wan’s, thoroughly rumped and stained with grass in some places, and mud in others. He has lost his hair tie at some point in the night, and now his hair falls untidily down his shoulders and hangs in his face. He picks several burrs and bits of grass out of his hair and tries to smooth back the tangles. 

“Am I presentable?” he asks, and Obi-Wan studies him intently.

“Almost.” Obi-Wan wanders over to a rock outcropping, where the native starry white flowers grow wild in the crevices, and comes back with a flower in his hand. He smoothes back a strand of Qui-Gon’s hair and tucks the flower behind Qui-Gon’s ear. “There. That suits you, I think.”

“No one appreciates my natural charms like you do,” Qui-Gon says. He is only half-joking. 

“That’s right,” says Obi-Wan. There is a certain gleam in his eye. 

The return to their ship is considerably delayed. But when Qui-Gon makes note of it, Obi-Wan appears remarkably unconcerned. 

\---

They walk downstream for a while, following the river as it snakes back and forth, until they find a place where the river falls over a cliff in a series of cascades.

The waterfalls flow over wet black rock into a calm pool before meandering off as a river again. Qui-Gon sits by the pool and puts his feet in the water. Obi-Wan climbs over the rocks at the base of the cascades and places his hands under the falling water, letting water glide through his fingers. 

He cups a handful of water and drinks, then splashes his face and drags his fingers through his hair until it lies down smoothly. Obi-Wan, who has always cared so much about looking presentable, Qui-Gon thinks. There’s that feeling again, rising up in his chest. 

He picks a flower growing nearby, and then another, and he threads the stems together, until he has woven a loose wreath of bedraggled flowers. He places the wreath on Obi-Wan’s head, which Obi-Wan accepts with a dignified air. 

Qui-Gon absently picks the petals of a leftover flower in his lap. There is a game that young people play, he remembers; pick a petal, _ He loves me_, pick another, _ He loves me not. _ But Obi-Wan stops his hand before he reaches that last petal.

“You should know,” he says carefully, “that you do not have to guess as to the answer to that question.”

Well, then.

\---

Afterward, there are flower petals scattered in Obi-Wan’s hair. Qui-Gon does not mention it. He keeps glancing over at Obi-Wan and seeing the small white petals caught in his beard and he finds himself thinking, almost bewildered, _ He loves me. He loves me. _

_ \--- _

Returning to the ship takes quite a bit longer than Qui-Gon had predicted. There are several brief detours undertaken on the journey back in order to kiss Obi-Wan senseless.

\---

Before they leave the river altogether to head back through the forest, Obi-Wan stops in his tracks and reaches inside his tunic’s pocket. Qui-Gon can see that Obi-Wan is holding the river stone. He has a thoughtful look on his face. 

“This feels right,” he says, almost to himself, but the look he gives Qui-Gon is questioning. Qui-Gon nods, understanding. He thinks he knows what Obi-Wan intends to do. Obi-Wan places the stone back in the river, a reversal of that day nearly fifty years ago when Qui-Gon had reached into the water to take it out. 

“It belongs here,” Obi-Wan says. He sounds almost wistful. “Are you sure it’s all right?”

Qui-Gon considers. He can see the water flowing over the river stone’s glossy black surface. The light reflecting off the water catches on the red highlights in the ebony. Qui-Gon comes up behind him and places his arms around Obi-Wan’s waist, leans his head against Obi-Wan’s cheek. 

“It belongs here," he agrees. 

"You won't miss it?" Obi-Wan asks.

"I belong with you,” Qui-Gon says simply. It is the truth, and it has been so for many years now. 

Not long after that, they turn to leave. But Qui-Gon lingers for a moment, caught by the cold wind that sets tree branches quivering and the sound of running water. He has always felt so connected to this place. He has spent years looking for something, somewhere, a moment to bring back the kind of feeling he has always experienced here by this river. This connection. This feeling of belonging. Of home.

He has felt a sense of loss so often these past seven years that it has become a background noise, always humming under the surface of his skin, this absence, this longing for somewhere - _someone? _ And now that loneliness has gone. Faded away, as though it had never been. 

It was never the river he has been seeking.

“It’s been you,” he says, and Obi-Wan makes a questioning noise. He tries to explain. “I have been so very lost, Obi-Wan, these past few years of my life. And I have spent so much time looking for something to make me feel home again. You are what I have been looking for. Not a place. Just you.” 

“After all this time,” Obi-Wan is saying, “I never thought you would chose me. That you would want me. I had not hoped for so much.”

There is joy, Qui-Gon is finding, there is joy in letting go. 

\---

The ship is waiting for them on the outskirts of the forest. It is well into the night by the time they return. The console just inside the ship is blinking notifications of unread messages. Qui-Gon ought to head to the cockpit to hear the messages, to program the navicomputer and start the preflight checklist, to send another apologetic message concerning their ever-increasing delayed return to the council, but instead he finds himself taking a detour to his bunk, tugging Obi-Wan after him, so he can lay down on a surface with no rocks digging in his back and close his eyes. 

The bunk is just long enough for him to stretch out all the way, so he lies on his back and lets Obi-Wan curl around him, with Obi-Wan’s head on his shoulder, and pulls the thin standard ship-issued blanket up to their shoulders. 

“You are the most wonderful, of all that I have ever seen,” Qui-Gon whispers in his ear. Obi-Wan holds very still, listening. “The most glorious.” 

He goes on whispering in Obi-Wan’s ear until Obi-Wan’s eyes drift shut.

He can tell just when Obi-Wan falls asleep; he lets out a long breath and then he goes soft against Qui-Gon’s side, still with his head resting on Qui-Gon’s shoulder. Qui-Gon stays awake for a while after that, stroking Obi-Wan’s cheek gently, so as not to wake him, looking at him long after he closes his eyes and falls asleep with one hand resting on his chest, and long after that, he’s still wondering what this feeling means, what it means that he cannot take his eyes away. 

By the time he falls asleep, Qui-Gon thinks he knows what it means. 

And when morning comes, he is whispering the meaning into Obi-Wan’s ear. 

\---

They do not get up with the dawn. Qui-Gon concedes that there can be a benefit to ignoring the call of the day in favor of sleeping in. He remarks on his newfound discovery to Obi-Wan, who takes it in stride.

“Let’s go somewhere with a real bed next,” Obi-Wan suggests. “With clean sheets. And showers,” he says as an afterthought.

Qui-Gon’s hands stop their journey up and down Obi-Wan’s back. “Next?” he asks, startled.

Obi-Wan is not hiding the grin that creases the corners of his beard. “I had thought,” he says impishly, “that it would be a shame to go back to Coruscant, when there are still so many places we have not been together.”

“Are you hijacking this ship?” Qui-Gon asks, delighted.

“It depends. Are you going to let me?”

Obi-Wan gets no audible answer. However, he is fairly convinced that the answer is yes.

Much later after that, Qui-Gon is admiring the look he has managed to inspire on Obi-Wan’s face. The soft look in his eyes. The corners of his mouth turned up in a fond smile. Happiness diffused all over his expression. It’s a good look on him, Qui-Gon thinks. Obi-Wan’s reddish-gold beard hides his dimples from sight, but Qui-Gon knows that there are there: He has felt them under his lips as he pressed kisses on Obi-Wan’s cheeks.

Obi-Wan is looking at him quizzically. “What are you thinking of, Qui-Gon?”

He is running his hands up and down Obi-Wan’s side again, thinking hard. “What would you say to a layover on Scarif?” Qui-Gon asks him. He is wondering if he can inspire this look on Obi-Wan’s face again. Perhaps on a beach with glass-green waves and soft pink sand, with sunlight in his hair and warming his skin.

\---

(He can.)

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I'd rather be with you  
Say you want the same thing, too  
Say you feel the way I do
> 
> \----
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!! Never had so much fun writing a fic before. Please let me know if you liked it! You can find me on tumblr at outpastthemoat, where I am always crying about these two.


End file.
